Netanyahu expands separation wall to Jordan Valley

A Palestinian youth rides his bicycle next to Israel’s “apartheid wall” on the outskirts of Jerusalem. (Photo: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Al Akhbar English)

The Netanyahu government has now announced that it will expand the separation wall to seal in the Jordan Valley, building along the border with Jordan. The Israeli dailyMaariv broke [Hebrew] the story yesterday, citing that Netanyahu also promised to increase the speed of construction along the northern border with Syria and Lebanon.

The idea of formally retaining Israeli control over the Jordan Valley dates back to just after the June 1967 war when Yigal Allon mapped out a plan to annex the agricultural lowlands as part of the Allon Plan. Within a year socialist-inspired kibbutzniks working alongside IDF bases established the first settlements. “Defensible borders without peace are preferable to peace without defensible borders,” wrote Allon two years after the occupation began. For Allon, it was more important to gain control of the Jordan Valley rather than sign a peace deal with the Palestinian leadership. “It is better if they are secure, even if for many years to come they are not agreed,” he continued.

In recent years Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown a renewed emphasis in the Jordan Valley. In 2010 the Likud leader asserted to the Israeli public, “Israeli will never cede the Jordan Valley.”

‘Israel will never cede the Jordan Valley. Israel would never agree to withdraw from the Jordan Valley under any peace agreement signed with the Palestinians. And it’s vital – absolutely vital – that Israel maintain a long-term military presence along the Jordan River.’

Around the same time he began to lobby Israel’s defense ministry to begin planning the route of the wall. Marriv reports:

In a Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee hearing held two years ago, Netanyahu said that there is a danger of invasion in Judea and Samaria from the [Palestinians in the] Jordan Valley. He did not elaborate but made clear: ‘We must continue the Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley along the Egyptian border and the Jordanian border. The government is examining the possibility of establishing a fence.’

In 2007 Israel suspended expansion of the separation barrier. Last year the construction restarted, concentrating on the regions near Israel’s northern and western borders. With the addition of the Jordan Valley, Netanyahu will have effectively walled-in the country.

About Allison Deger

Allison Deger is the Assistant Editor of Mondoweiss.net. Follow her on twitter at @allissoncd.

>> That’s what i say to the Palestinians but they somehow don’t listen.

No more Israel, no more supremacist “Jewish State”, no more Palestine. Just one secular, democratic and egalitarian state called Levantium – a state of and for all Levantine citizens, equally; a tolerant, supremacism-free melting-pot society of Jewish and Palestinian cultures.

All refugees from the area comprising Levantium would be permitted to return to their homes and lands. Special immigration status could be extended to anyone originally from or up to n generations removed from Levantium. All benefits derived from the sale of Levantine natural resources would benefit all citizens of Levantium.

Actually, the historic name is Judea and Samaria.
The name West Bank only originated after the Jordanians annexed the area in 1947.

Actually, the area the Jordanians named the West Bank in 1949 didn’t exist as a geographical unit before that, so it couldn’t have had a “historical” name. The new unit included parts of the previous districts of Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, Ramallah, Jerusalem and Hebron. More generally, it was simply a part of Palestine.

Greetings Shmuel,
…..the historic name is Judea & Samaria…..
We remember the dude that strolled upon the Falls in Africa?
He called them the Victorian Falls.
Judea doesn’t come about before the Kingdom in 933BC!
Semites, anyone who speaks an Afro/Asian tongue, were there
for 90 to 110K yrs.
Canaan dates back 4K BC, their wallin City was called Schalim,
Godess of the twilight, later to be dubbed Jerusalem, an unwalled
puny village of 2K inhabitants under Kind David.
At what time in history, do you start counting to equate history?
How big is a whale? What age?
ziusudra
PS Adm. Champlaine is known to have historically named Canada!
After the Huron Tribes told him the name of their ‘Village’ was Canada
in Huron!

“PS Adm. Champlaine is known to have historically named Canada!
After the Huron Tribes told him the name of their ‘Village’ was Canada
in Huron”

Since this thread has turned into one about the etymological fun and games of geographical places, might as well give it a kick here too. Canada, as you said, is the alteration of the word Kanata meaning “the village”, however it was not named by Champlain that arrived in Canada in 1608 and who first met the Huron in 1615, but by another Frenchman, Jacques Cartier in 1535, the year after he first landed there. Cartier first heard the word “Kanata” uttered not by the Huron (also a deformation of the French word “hure” or “boar”, their actual name being the “Wyandot”), but from the Haudenosonee(meaning “long house”), commonly known in Canadian history as the Iroquois. The name “Canada” remained in use for the following 332 years to designate Upper Canada(that became Ontario) and Lower Canada (that became Quebec) until 1867 when other provinces joined the confederation and the whole was called Canada.

Shmuel is right as well as Talknic and you are sounding like an idiot. And seeing as Mike Konrad forgot to mention that the land has been known under other names, you might try wasting your time lecturing to him.

BTW. How did the Pam Gellar look go for Halloween? I am sure you were very believable. Maybe try Caroline Glick nest year?

It is not my fault you are unable to ever concede a point.
When the Romans renamed Judea Palestine after the defeat of Bar Kochba revolt they did it to erase the Jewish past.
Similar reasoning and behaviour to yours in fact.

Cliff says: Referring to it as Judea and Samaria is a denial of the Palestinian people’s collective human rights.
===============================================
The Palestinian people’s human rights rest upon being referred to as the West Bank of the State of Jordan?

It is your fault that you remain ignorant. It has been repeatedly explained to you that the Romans did not rename Judea Palestine, but that the name predated the Romans. Herodotus wrote about Palestine in the 5th century BCE.

I imagine you strongly resemble THIS man here;

Last time you referred to him, I had to explain to you that he was an Australian comedian, not a real minister.

The Canaanites were sedantary 4K BC.
The Egyptians came later & called it Peleset after an ancient lake.
Peleset, Falesteena, Palistine, whatever.
The Canaanites had had to have a name for the area.
Mankind has lingual communication ca. 100K yrs.
Every puny tribe identified his territory with a name.
The Egyptians wrote before the Canaanites.
Hebrew first gets completed in 100BC.
Hence, written historical evidence is shorter than word of mouth
of any area.
ziusudra
PS Historically Noah is known as Noah, but his real Name was Ziusudra, a Sumerian King of who led the salvage of a barge of live stock caught on an
embankment of the Euphrates Flood in 2900BC! Ziusudra was Judaized Noah in 536BC in Babylonia! Sound famliar?

@ mondonut “The Palestinian people’s human rights rest upon being referred to as the West Bank of the State of Jordan?”

Catch up Jordan relinquished the West Bank so Palestine could declare statehood in 1988

The more you try the more you will fail, because there is absolutely no legal basis and no argument that passes the test when it comes to trying to justify Israel’s claim any territory outside its Internationally recognized sovereign extent of May 15th 1948

It is simply not true that Palestine was called Palestine during the Roman era.
Strabo the prominent Roman era geographer referred to the region as Coele-Syria (“all Syria”) around 10-20 CE.

The term Palestine only became official under the Romans in c 135CE after the 2nd Jewish uprising against Rome – the Bar Kochba revolt

The first clear use of the term Palestine to refer to the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt was in 5th century BC Ancient Greece.[6] Herodotus wrote of a ‘district of Syria, called Palaistinê” in The Histories, the first historical work clearly defining the region, which included the Judean mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley.[7][8][9][10][11][12] Approximately a century later, Aristotle used a similar definition in Meteorology, writing “Again if, as is fabled, there is a lake in Palestine, such that if you bind a man or beast and throw it in it floats and does not sink, this would bear out what we have said. They say that this lake is so bitter and salt that no fish live in it and that if you soak clothes in it and shake them it cleans them,” understood by scholars to be a reference to the Dead Sea.[13] Later writers such as Polemon and Pausanias also used the term to refer to the same region. This usage was followed by Roman writers such as Ovid, Tibullus, Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder, Dio Chrysostom, Statius, Plutarch as well as Roman Judean writers Philo of Alexandria and Josephus.[14] Other writers, such as Strabo, a prominent Roman-era geographer (although he wrote in Greek), referred to the region as Coele-Syria (“all Syria”) around 10-20 CE.[15][16] The term was first used to denote an official province in c.135 CE, when the Roman authorities, following the suppression of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, combined Iudaea Province with Galilee and other surrounding cities such as Ashkelon to form “Syria Palaestina” (Syria Palaestina). There is circumstantial evidence linking Hadrian with the name change although the precise date is not certain and the assertion of some scholars that the name change was intended “to complete the dissociation with Judaea” is disputed.

Roman Jerusalem period
However, during the Roman Jerusalem period “Palestine” was not the only geographical term for the region. For example, Strabo, in his description of Jerusalem and Judea, uses the term “Coele-Syria” (“all Syria”), and Pliny (as above) uses both terms.

Roman Aelia Capitolina period 135 CE: After crushing Bar Kochba’s revolt in 132-135, the Roman Emperor Hadrian applied the name Syria Palestina to the entire region that had formerly included Iudaea Province.

The term Palestine only became official under the Romans in c 135CE after the 2nd Jewish uprising against Rome – the Bar Kochba revolt

False.

The name Palestine was referenced in Roman literature well before 135 CE, when StandWithUs says the land was suddenly “renamed.”

For instance, in the first decade of the 1st Century CE, the Roman poet Ovid mentioned Palestine in both his famed mythological poem Metamorphoses and his erotic elegy The Art of Love. He also wrote of “the waters of Palestine” in his calendrical poem Fasti. Around the same time, Latin poet Tibullus wrote of “the crowded cities of Palestine” in his poem Delia.

Even the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, writing around the third decade of the 1st Century CE, referred to “Syria in Palestine” as being inhabitant in part by “the very populous nation of the Jews.” (XII.75)

Perhaps the most well-known Jewish historian of the 1st Century is Josephus (c.37-100 CE), born and raised in Jerusalem, who was a military commander in Galilee during the First Jewish Revolt against the occupying Roman authority, a negotiator during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, and later wrote extensively of Levantine Jewish history. His The Jewish War, Antiquities of the Jews, and Against Apion all contain copious references to Palestine and Palestinians.

Towards the end of Antiquities, Josephus writesthat he has documented historical events “from the original creation of man, until the twelfth year of the reign of Nero, as to what hath befallen the Jews, as well in Egypt as in Syria and in Palestine” and beyond. (XX.11.2)

In the 5th Century BCE, Herodotus, the first historian in Western civilization, referenced”Palestine” numerous times in his chronicle of the ancient Greek world, The Histories,including his documentation that “the coastal parts of Syria…and all that lies between it and Egypt is called Palestine.” (VII.89, trans. Henry Carter, Heritage Press, 1958).

Furthermore, the name Palaestina was not of Greek origin, but has even more ancient roots. According to the late University of Chicago professor Gösta Ahlström in his seminal bookThe History of Ancient Palestine, “Clearly Herodotus did not invent the name but used an already common term,” derived from the Akkadian, Hebrew, Aramaean, and Egyptian words for Philistines. “Herodotus’ use of the term shows that its content had expanded in the Persian period and that it referred to the people of the coastal areas from Gaza to Carmel,” explains Ahlström.

Well – it is good to know that you suddenly regard Josephus as a credible source – when it suits your purposes. You haven’t in the past. I am going to hold you to your sudden belief in the historical veracity of the stories of Josephus from now on.

Fight against and deny historical reality all you wish but the fact is in the First Century AD Palestine was called the Roman province of Iudea (Judea ) and – after the Bar Kochba uprising – the name Judea was wiped off the map for good ;

During the Roman period, the province of Iudaea covered much of modern Palestine, although the Galilee and other northern areas remained distinct administratively. However, many writers continued to use the Greek name. For example, in the first century C.E., the Roman writer Pliny the Elder mentions a region of Syria that was “formerly called Palaestina” among the areas of the Eastern Mediterranean.[23] The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in Greek, used the name Palaistinê for the smaller coastal area which most of his contemporaries preferred to call Philistia.[24] the Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria, also writing in Greek, used the terms Palestine and Canaan interchangeably, noting that the region’s Jewish population was larger than that of any other single country.[25]

The name and the borders of Palestine have varied throughout history, though Palestine has certain natural boundaries that justify its historical individuality.[4] Other terms that have been used to refer to all or part of this area include Arabistan, Canaan, Greater Israel, Greater Syria, the Holy Land, Iudaea Province, Israel, “Israel HaShlema”, Kingdom of Israel, Kingdom of Jerusalem, Land of Israel, Levant, Retenu (Ancient Egyptian), Southern Syria, and Syria Palestina

Here is a map of the Roman province of Iudea in the First century Roman Iudaea Province in the 1st century CE as based on Robert W. Funk’s The Acts of Jesus, Michael Grant’s’s Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels and John P. Meier’s A Marginal Jew.

Well – it is good to know that you suddenly regard Josephus as a credible source

You don’t have to take him as credible for him to have referred to Palestine. Even if he is not credible, why would he invent a name that didn’t exist?

the fact is in the First Century AD Palestine was called the Roman province of Iudea (Judea ) and – after the Bar Kochba uprising – the name Judea was wiped off the map for good

Repeat the hasbara all you like, that is simply not the case. Even your own link debunks your argument:

For example, in the first century C.E., the Roman writer Pliny the Elder mentions a region of Syria that was “formerly called Palaestina”

Now why would there be any need to rename the place Palestine of it had already been formerly called Palestine?

The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in Greek, used the name Palaistinê for the smaller coastal area which most of his contemporaries preferred to call Philistia

Again, I already debunked that claim by citing Aristotle, who a century after Herodotus, affirmed the commonality of the term when, in his Meteorology, he describes the Dead Sea as “a lake in Palestine, such that if you bind a man or beast and throw it in it floats and does not sink.” (II.3) In the mid-2nd Century BCE, ancient geographer Polemon wrote of a “part of Syria called Palestine,” while Greek travel writer Pausanias wrote in his Description of Greece of “the dates of Palestine.” (9.19.8)

One of the historical names. Interesting, tho completely irrelevant as of the moment Israel was proclaimed and recognized as it asked to be recognized “MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I have the honor to notify you that the state of Israel has been proclaimed as an independent republic within frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947, and that a provisional government has been charged to assume the rights and duties of government for preserving law and order within the boundaries of Israel, for defending the state against external aggression, and for discharging the obligations of Israel to the other nations of the world in accordance with international law. The Act of Independence will become effective at one minute after six o’clock on the evening of 14 May 1948, Washington time.”

“The name West Bank only originated after the Jordanians annexed the area in 1947″

Wrong date (1950). Correct tho in name, the West Bank. And so it still is. It has never been officially changed back to Judea and Samaria.

Other than for Zionists using them to enshrine their theft of the land, the terms Samaria and Judea are just as appropriate as the term “West Bank”, an invented term by the Jordanians. Given the choice in names between calling the area “West Bank” and “Judea-Samaria”, I’d prefer Judea-Samaria by their Arabic names as there is nothing behind the name “West Bank”. It’s a regrettable the Zionists are using the term for the wrong reasons. In Arabic, Samaria is “as-Samirah” or “Jabal Nablus” and Judea is “Yahudia”. It was the British that revived the provincial names Samaria and Judea.

The term West Bank was coined by the Jordanians after they seized it in the 48 war; the terms Samaria and Judea were used in the proposed UN Partition Plan :

“… The Arab State would receive the Western Galilee, with the town of Acre, the hill country of Samaria and Judea, and the southern coast stretching from north of Isdud (now Ashdod) and encompassing what is now the Gaza Strip, with a section of desert along the Egyptian border. “

Since when the Arabs call the areas “as-Samera” and “Yahudia”? (I think they say Yahuda, but doesn’t really matter).

If the Arabs call the areas “as-Samera” and “Yahudia”, why shouldn’t we call them by the same names, Yehuda ve-Shomron, like we say Galil and Jalil, Negev and Naqab, Golan and Jolan, Yarden and Urdun, Levanon and Lubnan etc.? Why using these names is “enshrine their theft of the land”? I think that even after independent state of Palestine will be established, Inshallah, we can continue use these names.

“@Walid: I little confused from your summery and have two questions. ”

Mahane1 (the original), I didn’t say the Arabs, and certainly not the Palestinians are now calling the area “as-Samirah/Yahudia” especially after the Israeli theft of 67 followed the Jordanian one of 49. Between the Jordanians bastardizing the area’s name into “West Bank” and the current thieves into “Samaria/Judea”, you can conclude that the name surely originated in Biblical times, but it’s the Zionist that are making political hay out of calling the areas by those names today. The reviving of the Biblical names was done by the British occupants around 1920 to designate a northern and a southern province of Palestine as they were more or less in the days of the Roman occupation of the region. The Zionist grabbed that ball and have been running with it since.

If you really want to get serious about this and put aside your Zionist hocus-pocus, the proper name and most used name, at least the one on record for at least 3 hundred years until the time of the 2 grand thefts for the northern part, is Jabal-Nablus. It’s documented by the British Reverend John Mills from his 2 trips to the area in the 1850s and written about in his travelogue “Palestina” and more recently in 1995 by Beshara Doumani in his book “Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus 1700-1900″ that was acknowledged and reviewed by the shark pool of Daniel Pipes.

Jabal-Nablus also went by “Jabal-al-nar” (the mountain of fire) because its inhabitants played leading roles in fighting invaders through history since the periods of the Egyptian pharaohs and more recently in fighting against the invading Egyptian forces in 1834; they rebelled against the British rule in 1936-39; The first armed uprising against the British was led by Sheikh Izeddin al-Qassam (it gives you an idea who the Gaza rockets were named after) who set his headquarters in the wooded hills of Ya’bad village; and the Palestinians of Jabal-Nablus led the intifada against the Israeli occupation in 1987-88.

Using the names Judea and Samaria suggests to me that the Judea bit is where the Jews should have their Jewish State, Samaria is where the Samaritans should have their Samaritan state, and the rest of Palestine is for everyone else.

@Walid: Thank for your comprehensive answer. I knew it will be different from the usual answers “There is no Judea and Samaria” “you invented…” and so on. The Zionists and the Israelis revived many ancient Hebrew names in this land. I don’t know other nation in the world, returned to their homeland after several centuries in diaspora and revived it again, although other people call this nation “current thieves”.

“The Zionists and the Israelis revived many ancient Hebrew names in this land. ”

Not just ancient Biblical names but also modern ones of infamous terrorists that were involved in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Many of these names replaced former Palestinian and other Arabic historic ones, especially on street-names and names of train stops in Jerusalem to erase traces of Palestinian Arabs. Israeli towns built over the ruins of the destroyed Palestinian villages in the Zionist orgy of detruction of 500 villages were renamed to take on the names of commanders or names of military operations involved. The village of Umm al-Faraj comes to mind; after its destruction that left only a mosque standing for some reason, it became the town of Ben-Ami that was first populated in 1949 by Haganah’s demobilized Carmel Brigade terrorists, most probably involved in Operation Ben-Ami that ethnically cleansed the area’s 9 villages.

>> I don’t know other nation in the world, returned to their homeland after several centuries in diaspora and revived it again …

People who are generations – even centuries! – removed from a geographic region have no legitimate right to claim that geographic region as their homeland.

They have no legitimate right to mass-migrate to that region, to ethnically-cleanse the indigenous population from that region, to occupy and colonize that region, to set up an oppressive and supremacist state in that region, and to engage in colonialist and expansionist activities in that region.

>> … although other people call this nation “current thieves”.

People call it that because that is what it is. Although, more correctly, the nation is “current supremacist thieves”. And you – being a Zio-supremacist – approve of that.

@Walid: As a sovereign state, we have the right to call places after our important personalities from all fields including our freedom fighters who gave their lives for the independence of my people.

If the village of Umm al-Faraj comes to your mind, the Rachel’s Tomb in Beth-Lehem comes to my mind. The Palestinians, after centuries they called the place Kubat Rahel (Kubat Ra7el), changed the name to Bilal Ben-Rabah mosque (and requested UNESCO to recognize it). I sure you will find “sources” that show it was named Bilal Ben-Rabah mosque, so in advance I tell you that I know all the Palestinian arguments, not even one of them is truth, only more efforts to erase our identity and connection to our homeland.

The King of Jordan is too busy planning his emergency exit. The only card the Palestinians have is to play the surrender card. Admit Israel has won. Demand citizenship and equal rights to live in Jerusalem in Haifa in Lod in Ramallah just like any other Israeli. Then they can work to bring in their direct relatives from the camps and the diaspora

The King of Jordan is too busy planning his emergency exit. The only card the Palestinians have is to play the surrender card. Admit Israel has won. Demand citizenship and equal rights to live in Jerusalem in Haifa in Lod in Ramallah just like any other Israeli. Then they can work to bring in their direct relatives from the camps and the diaspora

The Israelis are not going to give them citizenship, though.

The Israelis want their patrimony. They do not want the Arabs on it. They are not going to give the Arabs citizenship. The surrounding Arab states refuse to absorb the Palestinians. The Israelis have nukes.

This is why the problem is intractable.

The newest ideas on the Israeli websites involved some crazy idea that the Palestinians should all be given Jordanian citzenship. This is 25 years after Jordan surrendered claims to Judea and Samaria and severed all legal ties.

I have no idea why the Israelis think Jordan would give Jordanian citizenship to the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.

The newest ideas on the Israeli websites involved some crazy idea that the Palestinians should all be given Jordanian citzenship.

oh spare us your propaganda, this scheme has always been the zionist wet dream. there’s nothing new about this. and yes we already know you think palestinians should be paid off, and mpove to south america!

i recall asking you earlier what dollar amount you thought jerusalem was worth, but you never put a price on it. what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. but you can never quite get it thru your head palestinians determination is at least as strong as israelis. so give us your price mike, what amount would jews take to abandon their colonialization project in palestine.

Annie understates when she writes “palestinians determination is at least as strong as israelis.” Palestinian culture has weathered more occupations than any other community on Earth. And waved good bye to every one of them. Zionists bit off way more than they can chew when they settled on Palestine for their little project. They should have opted for Galveston, Texas; an early target of the enterprise.

@SQ Debris – – Palestinians almost certainly will accept Israel within “1967” borders. Zionists got away with the theft of 78% of Palestine. That success is being put into question by insane Zionist expansionists.

>> The Israelis want their patrimony. They do not want the Arabs on it.

patrimony: property inherited from one’s father or male ancestor.

1. It’s clear you’re not referring to all Israelis, but to Jewish Israelis and, most likely, to non-Israeli Jews. How Zio-supremacist of you.

2. The patrimony of Jewish Israelis does not extend to all of Israel, never mind to all of historic Palestine. And the patrimony of non-Israeli Jews extends only to legitimate inheritance. Prayers and yearnings and scriptures and (day-)dreams do not constitute a legitimate inheritance.

Not to forget the Palistinians’ cultural patrimony as it’s in Israel’s crosshairs in its incessant attempts at vanishing the Palistinians and everything that has anything to do with them. Cultural patrimony that’s robbed of the Palestinians like the Great Book Robbery in all of Palestine and the theft of the library of Palestinian authors in Beirut, like the destruction of 500 villages to erase them from view, like the renaming of areas, towns and streets with Hebrew names, like robbing the Palestinians of their historical academic records and civil registers in Ramallah, like harrasing school kids and attacking their schools to keep the kids disorientated in their studies, or actually bombing schools, or physically preventing endowed students from advancing their learning outside Palestinian borders. Israel’s attacks on Palestinian culural patrimony is attacking the annual olive harvest, it’s claiming the humus and the falafel as part of Israel’s culture and it’s declaring illegal the harvesting of the Palestinian national staple, the zaatar because it’s allegedly one of the area’s endangered species.

Pay the Palestinians to leave is the only option left.
What about paying the Jews to leave, Mike? Saudi Arabia could lavish a few tens of billions on Israeli Jews to get them to relocate to the US. The Jews would get peace and security, the US housing market would get a huge boost, and the Saudis would win the Nobel Peace Prize and the eternal gratitude of the Arab world! Sound like a plan, Mike? It’s no crazier than your suggestion.

Kidding aside, there’s isn’t an Arab country willing to take in Palestinians. So all the talk about compensating Palestinians to leave is absurd or compensation to abandon their RoR claims is equally absurd in light of having no country willing to take in Palestinians in any substantial numbers, even if those Palestinians were to have tens of thousands of dollars in their pockets from the compensation. Talk of compensation is all smoke and mirrors. Even talk of a Palestinian state within slightly modified West Bank borders couldn’t be possible either as Israel would never give up the water it’s siphoning from under the WB which is about 50% of its total water requirements, and it would never allow the new Palestinian state to open its doors to the close to 3 million refugees currently living in the camps of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.Abbas and Company appear to have already conceded these points, now it remains to be sold to the Palestinians, not forgetting that Erekat has already declared that whatever the PA agrees to with Israel shall not be put through a referundum with the Palestinian diaspora. We can safely assume that Gaza is now considered as being part of the diaspora.

Talknic, are you sure it wasn’t the American taxpayers that paid? There was a lot of talk at the time about Israel asking the US to chip in with $2 billion in additional aid and I’m sure they did. On average, families received between $150,000 and $400,000 depending on number of children, duration of stay in Gaza, size of home etc. and most took the money and relocated to the West Bank into subsidzed housing. On top of that, there were removal expenses, two years” free rent and redundancy compensation. A big racket, but what to say, Americans are the most generous people in the world.

Yes, talknic, that foundation money (tens of millions) to give the supposedly freed Gazans a starting opportunity of taking over the lucrative flower and vegetables greenhouses that the departing settlers had threatened to dismantle and take away or destroy if they weren’t compensated for them, the cash had been donated by Jews of good will in NYC.

Sadly or ironically, that money ended up going to waste because as soon as the Gazans took over the greenhouses, their (unrefrigerated) trucks carrying the produce for export were systematically held at the Israel border under the scorching sun for 4 to 5 days until everything wilted. To compound Israel’s evil ways, they shut off the water supply lines that fed the greenhouses and without adequate water, produce there too deteriorated. The greatly-frustrated Gazan growers realized they had been laughed-at by Israel that had given them the impression they were giving them their freedom and an opportunity with the free greenhouses, so they destroyed the greenhouses.

The Zionists jumped on this occasion to broadcast to the world how these ungrateful Palestinian barbarians after having been given their freedom in Gaza and provided with Jewish money to buy the greenhouses ended up showing their gratitude for all these generosities by destroying the greenhouses.

Agree. Let the final colonization wave wash over the WB. Hostage has said that the PLO retains its legal leverage in that event, so Palestinians in the the Israel-created one state would have both that legal and the moral outrage/leverage of an inarguable Apartheid condition to bargain for equal rights within the one state, and with unabashed global support.

Israel is so used to getting its way that it will be blindsided by the combined and reenergized condition it will find itself in, by its own greedy deeds. It’s heading that way anyway.

Gaza is not part of the equation anymore, realistically speaking. It will almost certainly, if only eventually, become the independent Palestinian State.

No one want’s Gaza, including the PA. The forces for integrating it into an overall deal are very very weak. Even weaker than, imho, those “pushing” for two states. The PA and the Palestinian diaspora don’t have the strength of anything to force Gaza to be included in the final arrangement if no one on the inside wants it to be included. Israel isn’t annexing it, so it’s not part of a de facto integration. Gaza is just hanging out there.

From inside Gaza, it is resource rich. Hamas or whatever moderated entity ultimately comes to rule there, democratically or otherwise, may not want to share that with a merged Israel/WB.

I also think that the Palestinians and the Palestinian diaspora deserves a state of their own. Something they are clearly not going to get in the WB. Something they can develop and make great/whole, now, and independent of a decades-long civil rights struggle within the WB/Israel state. There has to be considerable visceral yearning to do that within the Palestinian community there and abroad. I think that’s a substantial force in all this.

Whether or not Gaza is ultimately integrated into a combined one state is entirely possible, but I don’t think it is or will be a first choice or something that any of the parties will spend many chips to accomplish. It also doesn’t mean isolating the People of Gaza from their heritage in an increasingly equality based combined WB/Israel. It just means political separation along existing fault lines to isolate and exploit increasingly separate opportunities and outcomes. Perhaps unmixing the message along the way.

I’ve said this before. Sorry for the repetition. I just think it’s increasingly the reality. For cause.

There isn’t going to be a deal with the PA anyway. Zionism wants to iterate away to the ultimate point of Zionist logic (at which point it will fall over.) Gaza is out because it is so poor but that is not a permanent fact. The contours of the future of the situation are all up in the air.

It could have, seafoid, with all that gas that’s offshore, but Abbas, Israel and BP took care of that option and it’s no longer there.

We could ask the same question about a future state on the WB in whatever funny configuration Israel would allow to happen. And there too, the same answer except that now it involves oil under the West Bank and Israel has already a stanglehold on it too; Abbas will be probably be in that equation too.

“Probably because Jordan did not take Gaza Strip over, in wake of Israel’s creation in 1948-49.”

In the lead-up to the war, the West Bankers (The Jericho meeting crowd, that is) had decided to swear allegiance to the Jordanian king and the Gazans had decided to go with the Egyptians.The deal with the Zionists for the West Bank had been made before the actual war broke out.

You’re right, talknic. Gaza is integral to all international law related to Palestine. No argument from me.

I also know that I’m way off the reservation on this, but I can’t help thinking that if it came to a choice between a sovereign state in the WB, but without Gaza should this ever be overtly posed, Gaza would be cut loose in a heartbeat. It’s not the best outcome, but it has been decades of powerlessness on the Palestinian part, and bad faith on the Israeli part. I think if a concrete and reasonable deal was presented separating the WB and Gaza, the WBers would almost certainly go for it.

Palestinians don’t seem to be able to reconcile now, to present a common negotiating front. It’s possible the separation may be already done.

If in the merged/one state scenario, the level of effort being put forth by zionists of all stripes to reject that de facto reality would pale in comparison to the rejection of the inclusion of Gaza in that scenario. Israel, i.e. nobody in Israel, want’s Gaza’s land. If they did, they’d be stealing it as well.

Maybe I’m just lazily describing the path of least resistance in this mess, but lazily or not, I believe it IS the path of least resistance, within a conflict that is hallmarked by powerlessness, bad faith, and crummy choices.

• It could enable a relatively uncorrupted Palestinian entity to independently pursue Palestinian rights in international venues, likely in collaboration with a more subued, merged, ghettoized WB majority, with the aim of leveraging legal means of achieving equality sooner rather than later. Gaza could lead.

• It would give Palestinians a state. I don’t think the importance of that can be overstated. They will not get one in the WB. I believe/polls show there is a pretty significant desire for that, separate and distinct from making Israel pay. If I was Palestinian and had been subjected to decades of relatively unrebutted (until recently with say M. Assaf) characterization as thugs, liars, terrorists, subhumans, etc., ad nauseam, I’d want to show people the reality. (See point one.)

All as an outcome of the path of least resistance.

Sorry. I won’t bring this up again. It’s just my sense of the dynamic and trend. Probably completely wrong. But in any event there it is, FWIW.

Appreciate you all, and what you do to make this right and Palestinians whole.

Not really; you have some of the West Bankers that are more preoccupied with keeping Israel happy, safe and feeling secure than they are about uniting with the Gazans in a common state. It stands to reason that they wouldn’t want a fundamentalist Gaza with them. Neither Israel nor the US would want a new Palestine to have anything to do with Gaza.

I also know that I’m way off the reservation on this, but I can’t help thinking that if it came to a choice between a sovereign state in the WB, but without Gaza should this ever be overtly posed, Gaza would be cut loose in a heartbeat. It’s not the best outcome, but it has been decades of powerlessness on the Palestinian part, and bad faith on the Israeli part. I think if a concrete and reasonable deal was presented separating the WB and Gaza, the WBers would almost certainly go for it.

Palestinians don’t seem to be able to reconcile now, to present a common negotiating front. It’s possible the separation may be already done.

Greetings Blownaway,
Wha’, what’s left of your brains?
It is this hubris, narcissistic, solipsistic attitude
that’s going to hang you all.
The Kairos of Serendippity will be the Antithesis
to foil your puny illusionary Thesis dream of a greater Zionistan.
The Synthesis of the ME will be the ultimate Exodus of Zionism!
ziusudra
PS You will then wish that you had made some friends of the 350
mill. neighbors.

“@Walid – – Bashar al-Assad made many efforts to achieve peace with Israel, and get Israel out of the Golan etc etc.”

It wasn’t that many, James, for about 5 or 6 years until very recently, Syria was buying Golan-grown apples (10,000 tons annually) from Israel under the absurd pretext that the Israeli orchards on the Golan were employing Syrian Druze labourers. About 3 years ago a trial balloon was sent up in Haaretz about a possible peace deal by which Israel and Syria would co-manage and exploit the Golan. The plan (or the balloon) talked of joint touristic Disneyland-type (where’s seafoid?) projects. Nothing became of this balloon.

The real opportunity missed was by Assad Sr that came within 200 meters of getting his Golan back. Israel had more or less agreed to return the totality of the Golan with exception to the 200 meters abutting the northern shore of the lake that supplies 25% of Israel’s water. Assad Sr refused on principle and the deal died. He should have taken it because the shoreline of the lake is receding anyway and those 200 meters wouldn’t have given Syria control over anything substantial.

@Walid – – Yes, very unfortunate that Syria did not achieve peace with Israel. Bashar al-Assad used to say he would sign a peace treaty “today” if Israel gave back the Golan. (Including water rights, shoreline, etc)

The only card the Palestinians have is to play the surrender card. Admit Israel has won. Demand citizenship and equal rights to live in Jerusalem in Haifa in Lod in Ramallah just like any other Israeli.

I don’t think you understand what Palestinian surrender would mean. It would mean accepting citizenship and equal rights within Gaza and an archipelago of shrunken, non-contiguous, walled-off, Israeli-surrounded enclaves in the West Bank. Surrender would mean accepting THAT as a “state”–de facto and de jure separation from Israel, not citizenship in it.

“The only card the Palestinians have is to play the surrender card. Admit Israel has won. Demand citizenship and equal rights to live in Jerusalem in Haifa in Lod in Ramallah just like any other Israeli.”

Strange, that was the plan suggested in a post to me by Danaa 7 years ago but I wasn’t understanding it at the time. It had to be repeated to me a few times before it sank in because the concept of total capitulation by the Palistinians was inconceivable to me. It’s not really a surrender as much as it’s a capitulation. I guess this would involve having the Palestinians bow their heads and accept the Jewishness of the state and then begin their march on Selma. A modern-day Nostradamus, that Danaa.

They should take on the bots in style. The problem is the American public, so build the solution around them.

1. Change all the names. Mohamed to Moshe, Ibrahim to Avram, Samira to Zipporah etc
2. Claim they are the lost Jewish tribe of Cinderella. Americans won’t ask questions if it’s a gripping story with loads of tears
3. Point out what the ugly sisters have been doing to them since 1948
4. Ask for Prince Charming

Why would he? He’s on excellent terms with the US, Israel and the Gukf Arabs and stands a chance of becoming king over an expanded Jordan with a couple of million additional subjects. Things are looking good for him.

The only way Israel could get to this point was total indoctrination of the Jewish population . Pathological victimhood and narcissism married with utter sonofabitchiness. Not even a whimper from the opposition.

The problem with this program of clearing the land of Palestinians to purify the land for Gd is that by the time it’s over there won’t be anything to talk to Gd about.

‘Israel will never cede the Jordan Valley. Israel would never agree to withdraw from the Jordan Valley under any peace agreement signed with the Palestinians. And it’s vital – absolutely vital – that Israel maintain a long-term military presence along the Jordan River.’

The problem is: who/what will *force* Israel out? The U.N.? The U.S.? Europe? The “international community”? International courts? BDS? Another intifada? An armed Palestinian insurgency? A “regional war”?

@Sibiriak – – I take the long view. And I think it may take decades, but Israel will have to get out of WB. Provided European diplomats insist on it. Every chance should be taken to tell Israeli officials etc etc that roads, bridges, etc etc built in the West Bank belong to Palestine and will be deemed gifts.

Thanks for the report. It looks like Ma’ariv/NRG is breaking some good stories of late. I am reading it more now that Ha’aretz is a pay site.

According to the article, one of the reasons Netanyahu has given for the fence along the Jordan border is to keep Syrian refugees in Jordan out of Israel. I wonder what percentage of those refugees are also Palestinian refugees from 1948. Those are the only refugees, I can imagine, would want to go to Israel, but even for those I wonder if illegal entry into Israel would be appealing. The Jordan fence is probably about establishing “facts on the ground” and not about refugees.

The Palestinians picked up on the Jordan fence and of course are screaming foul.

Today’s issue of Ma’ariv quotes a speech (yesterday?) by Mahmoud Abbas in which he says the peace talks are going nowhere. (I guess the promise to Kerry about maintaining silence on progress in the talks are out the window.) Abbas also claimed that he never committed to not suing Israel at international institutions, however a Palestinian official told the paper that the PA had no immediate plans to do so.

According to the official, the PA is waiting for the Americans to make a peace proposal to break the impasse. Kerry will be meeting with Abbas shortly. I imagine the PA leader will attempt to convince Kerry to place an American compromise on the table.

The question that is sure to arise is what is the American position on the Jordan Valley? And if the Americans do make a proposal will it include an Israel presence there?

I think that the Obama administration will not offer any proposal at this stage in the negotiations. They do not want to cause the talks to blow up. But if and when they do make a proposal, I doubt that it will be acceptable to the PA. My guess is that any US proposal will be a lot less favorable to the Palestinians than were the Clinton parameters. This is because the present government of Israel will not want concede much, and the current American administration will not take on the Israeli thanks to the pro-Israel lobby.

Thus the peace process continues with all dancing in place. And J Street can continue to tell us how well it is all going. BTW, Jeremy Ben Ami has already stated that a continued Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley is a legitimate topic for the negotiations.

A collapsed set of talks will not be good for Israel’s battered image.
They were whining about how people perceive them last year and the picture has deteriorated in the meantime. They have painted themselves into a corner.

“According to the official, the PA is waiting for the Americans to make a peace proposal to break the impasse.”

Ira, if we go by past negotiations/deals along with what we learned of the freebies already consented-to by the PA from the Palestine Papers and the way the PA has been running interference for Israel at the UN, the UNHRC, the ICC and the rest, we can assume that the deal has already been made between Israel, the PA, the Americans and the Arabs hiding behind the curtain. What we’re going through now are the theatrics to sell the whatever deal to the Palestinian people, the customary Israeli storm before the calm. After the Valley wall panic situation, the bantustans will be a welcomed relief and 3/4 of the total Palestinian population, with the consent of the PA, will have been permanently shut out.

According to the official, the PA is waiting for the Americans to make a peace proposal to break the impasse.

Which of course is absurd. The only way to “break the impasse” would be for the Palestinians to capitulate completely.

As Juan Cole put it:

The current round of so-called peace talks between Israel and Palestine is marked by so much bad faith on the part of the Israelis that only the corruption and perfidy of the Mahmoud Abbas government in the West Bank can explain why the Palestinians should subject themselves to such exploitation and humiliation.

Seems walls will be going up on the borders to Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. I even heard talk about a “sea wall”. So after getting out of the ghettos and shtetls and taking Palestine from the native population by force to make it their own, they are now turning Israel into a ghetto? Kind of ironic isn’t it?
A walled-in paranoid country is still a ghetto, whatever the size. Is that what the Zionist dream was all about?

Good question, Sammar. When you carry the Zionist logic to near conclusion, yes, it is all about creating a new ghetto-nation. Such constructs have had appeal for many, but not one has ever been sustainable.

Sorry Walid, but the wall has never kept the Israelis out of anywhere if and when they decided to carry out military actions in an walled off ( or -in) Palestinian area. Israel’s walls are only intended to provide a one-way barrier – Israel still retains the right ( and ability) to cross it any time they want and wreak havoc on the other side.

Sammar, sparks and missiles will start to fly if and when Israel starts putting up a wall at Chebaa Farms, the Kfarshouba Heights or the Lebanese half of the village of Ghajjar that was to be vacated under UNSC 1701. So far, the wall is up only at Fatima’s Gate because the settlers at Methula can’t sleep nights knowing that they could be getting a visit from Hizbullah at any time.

I think John Kerry would have defeated George W. Bush in 2004 if Kerry had mounted a robust counter-attack against the vicious lies put out by the “Swiftboaters” to impugn Kerry’s war record dishonestly.

Just heard on CNN that Netanyahu supposedly made an offer on where negotiations on borders should start: not on the Green Line but at the Apartheid Wall. So much for Israel’s assurances that the wall was only a “temporary security measure”. It was pretty obvious from the beginning that it was a land grab, no matter how much Israel tried to deny it. Why else would they have built it on Palestinian land and made sure it included all the wells and farmland on the Israeli side?
Wonder what Kerry has to say to that offer? Does anyone in the US administration have a backbone???

“Why else would they have built it on Palestinian land and made sure it included all the wells…”

Not just the wells, Sammar, but also the main WB aquifers from where Israel is stealing half the water it’s consumming. You can be sure that the Palestinian share of the water would be much less in the future than the pitiful amounts being currently allocated to them by Israel. Ironically in certain parts, they are forcing the Palestinians to buy the more expensive desalinated water as the bulk of the natural fresh water is being gobbled up by Israel and its squatting settlers.

@Sammar — I think there was never any doubt that Netanyahu wants to undermine national security interests of the US by attemtping to keep all of West Bank cut off by Separation barrier. And scr*w Bibi.

Let us remember Condoleezza Rice’s utter stupidity in failing to object to the location of the separation wall. Total incompetence. (Unless being a stooge of Israeli expansionists was the reason she was put there in the WH in the first place.)

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